A new year is in full swing, and as we feel the blistery bite of Providence weather, the next four months on College Hill occupy our thoughts. With the start of a new semester, we are often filled with a blend of excitement and anxiety that is best exemplified by shopping period. It is a time to experiment and a time to take advantage of the many resources at our disposal. Shopping period is intoxicating, but it can often be overwhelming. Falling prey to this exhaustion is a symptom of what is frequently labeled the "holiday hangover." As we search for renewed purpose in our classes, the transition from couch potato to academic doesn't kick in quickly enough, and we end up settling for easier, safer options.
Brown has an astoundingly long break that dwarfs those of most universities. Five or six weeks at home away from problem sets and libraries is an enthralling thought once you reach mid-December. After the intense first week of family bonding, climaxing with Christmas, the next couple of weeks are quite active as you meet up with friends from high school and hit all your old, favorite spots. It is only in mid-January that a true comatose state is frequently reached as you spend more time on your own, happily cooped in your room catching up on all the television orgo deprived you of. In the last few days, the joy of being reunited with your Brown friends once again starts to creep in, but are you honestly ready to take up many new intellectual and academic pursuits?
I hardly need to romanticize the advantages of shopping period. As a Brown student, you understand them. Shopping period is not only meant to be a time to tickle your various fancies. It is also a nice transition back into the grind. Workloads tend to be lighter, and it provides a plethora of excuses for failing to complete an assignment. The lethargy of the holiday hangover only gives us more justification to slack off in those first few days of classes.
Many of us have maybe two or three classes that we are set on taking, but there are at least three or four in our cart prior to our arrival that compete to make the final cut. This makes sense from a psychological perspective. When pre-registration period initially comes around, we are right in the middle of our second phase of midterms, so searching for courses can be a salvation and give us hope. Adding to your cart can even be feigned as real productivity and not substantial procrastination as it often is for me.
There is hardly anything wrong with spending hours on Banner, because it helps us exercise our intellectual curiosity. But, the pressing issue here is how many of those classes do we end up attending? In this weather, you barely blame yourself for skipping a trip to the other end of campus for a 50 minute lecture that has only a slim chance of actually making it into your final schedule. We can make these rationalizations in a heartbeat and even subconsciously while the lethargy of our prolonged vacation triumphs.
Although most of us have a strong idea of what intrigues us at this point, many of us chose Brown for the options the Open Curriculum affords. Our noble intentions of assessing what we may learn from a course can persist in the first couple of days of school, but after the first weekend of going out, we regress into taking the trouble-free path a course may give us. We start to go after the ones that challenge us less, and the nonchalant state of mind that we develop over break catalyzes this laziness.
Fresh off conversations with parents, internships and our GPA still plague our mind, so we seek the easy classes that will give us more free time and satisfy us with a nice pat on the back rather than a brain-picking. We look for lax professors instead of ones who aim to push us out of our comfort zone, because our need for safety supersedes the curiosity that landed us at Brown in the first place.
I am not saying that taking a relatively light course is a mistake if it balances out a schedule. What I am trying to do is remind you of the reasons we have shopping period in the first place. The effects of the holiday hangover are understandable — who doesn't enjoy mother's room service? We should recognize these pitfalls before we choose classes that give us security over stimulation.
Nikhil Kalyanpur ‘13 is an
Environmental Studies concentrator who wants to see the good in people. He can be reached at
nik.kalyanpur@gmail.com.
